The two guards in front of the cave didn’t even get a chance. Drim was teleported behind the pair of Lesser’s and jabbed them with a knock-out concoction before they even realized he was there. After they collapsed, Phon and Bray appeared a moment later.
“So Mazie is in there?!” Bray stared at the cave entrance with burning impatience.
“Yup. She’s locked in a cage inside. Let me get a full scope of the situation before we do anything,” Phon roused Phonscience to attention to make a full model of the cave.
“In a cage?! Mazie, sweetie, I’m coming!” Without warning, Bray rushed headfirst into the cave while shouting.
“Shouldn’t we stop her?” Drim was a bit stunned by Bray’s brashness.
“Ehh, if she gets in any trouble, I’ll just teleport her back out.” Phon waved away the concern.
“I’m more interested in… Could you flip over one of these goons, Drim? I want to get a better look at their shirts.” He did as asked, and there was a graphic on the front of their shirt: a pair of red eyes.
“The Red Eyes Gang,” Drim muttered.
“Yup, what a stupid name,” Phon had to stifle a chuckle. The Red Eyes Gang was as it sounded, a gang made entirely of Lessers. They’d been growing in notoriety and now had several factions around the continent.
“How did they get their hands on such advanced tech, though?” she pondered.
“What are you talking about?” Drim inquired further.
“Mazie is in a pair of aura handcuffs, similar to the ones we used on Jaid. Looks like they’d work on Fiends too and restrict their powers. Let me check the others. Yup, they’ve captured a Fiend too. Is that who I think it is? Small world.”
“Let’s see who else they have. Just two more. Wait, I recognize them. Seriously?! I don’t know if I have the mental capacity to deal with this.”
“Who is it?” Drim was getting antsy and impatient, like someone listening in on a phone call but didn’t actually get to hear the other side of the conversation.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and I really don’t want to tell you,” Phon clearly wanted to move on from it. “Focusing on Bray is more important now anyways. The passage she’s walking through is littered with traps.”
“Well, get her out of there then!” Drim didn’t understand the holdup.
“No, I think the traps are rigged to only work on Fiends and Lessers,” Phon explained her reasoning. “They all have aura sensors on them. It’s definitely a good thing we didn’t rush in there, or even we may have gotten hit by them. Bray’s not setting them off at all, though. I guess they didn’t think a human could get past the guards, or that one would be dumb enough to sprint inside.”
“Bray’s about to reach the end of her capabilities, though. There’s a reinforced door blocking the main room where Mazie’s in. We should probably join her, and—”
“Oh, uhhh. She just ripped that thing right off its hinges. Damn. Is this that mother’s adrenaline thing I’ve heard about? Impressive stuff.”
“Okay, we’ve got an actual issue now. I’m going to—”
“Uhh, nevermind, I guess. She took care of it. Where did she even get a knife?” Phon fumbled in her pockets for a moment. “That crazy Draz took my knife! I didn’t even notice.”
“Alright, Drim, don’t be mad.” Even though Phon’s eyes were covered, she still looked away from him. “I’ll admit that this is entirely my bad. I shouldn’t have let it get this far, and should have stopped Bray sooner.”
“What happened?!” Drim’s tone of voice was already fully disappointed and upset with her without even knowing the details, though he could probably guess.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“So there was a guard in the room.”
“Uhuh…”
“And Bray had a knife…”
“Mhmm…”
“Now there is no longer a guard in the room.”
“And…”
“And Bray is now a Lesser.”
“Cosdammit Phon!” Drim’s face was immediately in one of his hands. “Look, I know your regard for human life isn’t as… Whatever, let’s just get in there for now. The lecture can wait.”
◆◆◆
The moment Bray heard that Mazie was in a cage, any sense of lingering patience was expunged from her body. From all the rumors she’d heard about Phon Drazah in the past year, she had a good idea that Phon would have a knife in one of her pockets. Bray didn’t even think about it, didn’t look if Phon was paying attention. She just slipped a hand into The Vixen’s skirt pocket and grabbed whatever was there.
Bray didn’t even confirm what it was, not able to stand still a moment longer, and dashed into the mouth of the cave. The rough rocky walls didn’t last long until the cave turned into a well-carved bunker. Everything was still made of stone, but the ragged structure funneled into a proper hallway.
Even though her vision was literally tunneled, Bray still noticed the beeping lights around her. While in a hurry, she couldn’t throw away her own life—not until Mazie was safe.
Bray kicked a rock past one of the beeping sensors and nothing happened, so she approached it cautiously. Next, she slowly waved one of her legs in front of it, but still got no response. She proceeded with hesitation, but grew more bold with each sensor she passed until she was back at a full sprint.
Finally, a large, reinforced door blocked her way. She jiggled the handle and it was locked, of course. But that didn’t stop her. Bray wrenched it with all of her might, and there was a clunk, but the door still didn’t open.
She’d broken the lock, but not in a way that was useful to her. Now Mazie was even more trapped than before, but damned if she was going to let some hunk of wood and metal stand in the way of her and her daughter.
Bray grabbed the handle with both hands and raised a leg against the wall for leverage. In one fluid motion, she ripped the door straight out of the way and hurled it off to the side. Not waiting a moment longer, she hurried into the room, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the situation.
There were three cages against the back wall in a semicircle. Mazie was in the one on the far left. There was a man and a woman trapped in the center cage, and there was a man on his own in the right cage. All of them had handcuffs around them like she’d never seen before.
Sitting in the center between all the cages was a Lesser Fiend. His back was towards the door, so he hadn’t seen Bray come in, and he seemed to be absorbed in his phone. More miraculously, he hadn’t heard the commotion she’d just caused, but that was due to the booming conversation in the room.
To put it in better terms, words were being spoken, but over top of each other and as loudly as possible. It was only slightly coherent, but Bray got the gist. The couple and the man in the cage were both trying to get Mazie’s attention and keep her entertained, but independently of each other's efforts. Bray had to assume this was to put her at ease and make her feel less afraid. She’d have to thank them for that later.
Her vision narrowed on the bastard gang member in the chair. How could they just sit there and leave her precious daughter to rot. They were irredeemable, and now the only real obstacle standing between her and Mazie.
She didn’t even have time to hesitate or rethink it. Before she even realized what she was doing, the knife was already unfurled and she was charging into the room. The Lesser sitting in their chair spun around just in time to see the glint of metal before it stabbed into his neck. Only when his body collapsed to the floor did Bray’s foggy vision begin to clear.
“Greetings madam,” the man on the right called out to her. “A pleasure to meet you this day. I commend you on your heroic rescue endeavors. Now if you’d be so kind as to grab the keys off of that vagrant, and unlock my cage, and undo these cuffs, I’d be more than happy to guide us all to safety.”
“No, no, you should let us out first,” the woman in the center cage insisted. We will charge ahead and clear a path—make sure none of those dastardly Red Eye goons stand between us and freedom!”
Bray ignored them both but still appreciated the advice about the keys. She rummaged through the blood soaked corpse and found them in one of his pockets.
“Mommy!” Mazie cried out to her, tears streaming down her face once the shock of her mother appearing and killing someone in front of her had worn off.
“Oh, you’re her mother!” the man realized and started speaking again while Bray fumbled with the lock. “That makes a lot more sense. You’ll be happy to know that all this time- Well if it isn’t my old friends, the Drazahs?! Be a pal and help me out of here, wontcha?”
Bray turned around briefly to confirm that the two Drazahs had in fact appeared behind her, but that was all the attention she gave them before returning to her task. Once she had the door open and Mazie’s restraints undone, she gave her daughter the biggest hug of her life—unsure if she’d ever let go again.